


miseria cantare

by darkavengerz (darkavenger)



Series: Matt's loosely connected fics about Laura and Daken [6]
Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:50:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2199492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkavenger/pseuds/darkavengerz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'It hurts. Worse than dying, worse than drowning. Every nerve in his body thrills at the touch of the flames. St. Elmo’s fire clinging to the rigging of some storm-tossed ship. Gradually, by increments the flames sink into him, melting the ice of his insides. The flames consume him, burn him up. Everything he was becomes nothing, dried kindling piled on the pyre.</p><p>This is how he is reborn, baptised in the fire of his own hatred. Brought back to life, or some shadowy imitation of it. The fire cleanses him. He is made pure in its flames. Everything except that hatred is burned away.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	miseria cantare

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from an AFI song. I feel like it and the lyrics are pretty fitting for this. Set while Daken is dead, before being brought back as a Horseman in Uncanny Avengers.

Pale shade of his former glory. He looks at the world through dead man’s eyes, through the veil death draped over him; a mourning shroud for the otherwise unmourned.

It is cold here. Every breath burns like inhaling melt water, like ice crystallising in his lungs. He is numb and frozen, so very cold. Until the hate, the bitter burning flame of his hate finds him under the starless skies, in the realm of the dead.  It floats in front of him, pale blue witchfire urging him forward, calling out to him. He turns towards it, off the path. A distant part of him wonders if that is wise. It seems he’d been walking endlessly, with no end in sight. His feet are battered, bruised. Yet something had compelled him to walk, a sense that purpose lay ahead. (That she was waiting for him. In life, he'd always been searching for her, or so it seemed, looking back. Even now, in death, with the whole of eternity stretched out before him, still he had searched.) But his spirit is restless and weary, and he leaves the path, follows the fire as it darts before him, leading him into a dark forest. The trees crowd close, and he stumbles over roots; briars snag at his skin with iron thorns, tearing into his skin, but the wounds do not bleed.

The flame dances ahead of him, a spot of brightness and colour in the endless night, ever out of reach, until at last he reaches a clearing and it stops. He reaches out for it with the distant curiosity of the dead. The flame flickers against his outstretched fingers, unbearable heat rippling over his icy skin, and it clings like napalm, spreading over him with terrible speed. The flames roar, and he joins his own voice with theirs, crying out in great agony. Tears squeeze from his eyes, warm, salty tears that trace tracks down his cheeks, cutting through the frost that had formed. Slowly, the flames thaw him out.

 It hurts. Worse than dying, worse than drowning. Every nerve in his body thrills at the touch of the flames. St. Elmo’s fire clinging to the rigging of some storm-tossed ship. Gradually, by increments the flames sink into him, melting the ice of his insides. The flames consume him, burn him up. Everything he was becomes nothing, dried kindling piled on the pyre.

This is how he is reborn, baptised in the fire of his own hatred. Brought back to life, or some shadowy imitation of it. The fire cleanses him. He is made pure in its flames. Everything except that hatred is burned away.

Once, when he had lived, he had felt passions. He had had dreams, and hopes, and desires. He had been flesh and blood and bone. Now he is made anew, and no longer has need of anything except that all-consuming hatred. Oh, he had hated while he lived, and he had hated well. But not as he does now, not with the same undiluted malice, the same intensity and singularity of focus. His hatred then cannot compare to what it has become. Sometimes though, he picks over the memories of his human hatreds, like a vulture picking over a corpse. The meat of them is flavoured with other emotions. Sadness, fear, rage, even love have added their taste. They taint it, pollute it. The meat is spoiled by their addition. His hatred now is pure, the distillation of an emotion into its very essence.

( _It is simple,_ a buried part of him thinks, and to the man he once was there would have been no greater insult than that.)

He has transcended life, transcended death. He has become something so much more than human. Glory, screams the angelic chorus, with their burning wings and thousand eyes. ( _He has become a ghoul, a dead thing walking. He is nothing but an echo, grown distorted and nonsensical_ ).

The fire burns bright, white-hot, the smoke of his burning body obscures his vision, and when the flames finally die down and the smoke clears, he is in the world of the living.


End file.
